On Meredith Kline

…although I mourned Kline’s death in 2007, his work is now more to me both a positive and a negative influence.  I still revere him as a brilliant and devoted servant of Christ, and I make liberal use of his early studies in suzereignty treaties and divine lordship.  But I argue against much of his later work, particularly his distinction between cult and culture, which leads to sharp distinctions between sacred and secular and between church and culture – sort of like Luther’s “two kingdoms.”  This is a fairly pervasive theme of my “Doctrine of the Christian Life.”  Not only do I believe this teaching is wrong but, as maintained by Kline himself and by many of his followers, I consider it divisive to the church.  Even if this teaching were true, it would not be suitable as a test of Reformed orthodoxy, if only because it is not required by the Reformed confessional standards.

From: “Backgrounds to My Thought,” by John M. Frame; Chapter 2 of Speaking the Truth in Love: The Theology of John M. Frame, edited by John J. Hughes (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2009), p. 28.

 

The Change of Day for the Sabbath

But, why the first day?  Did Jesus choose it arbitrarily to be the resurrection day and the post-resurrection Sabbath day?  I think not.  The Old Testament already contains much symbolism concerning the first day, which the New Testament fulfills.  Note the following:

1.  Adam’s first full day of life occurred on God’s seventh day, God’s Sabbath (Genesis 2.2-3).  So, God’s seventh-day Sabbath (which He shared with Adam, as we have seen) coincided with Adam’s first day.  The completion of God’s creative work was the beginning for Adam, the foundation of man’s earthly life, just as the resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of our new lives in Him, the new creation (cf. 2 Corinthians 5.17).  In both cases, the Sabbath is associated with the first day.

2.  The Pentecost wave and meal offerings occur on days “after the Sabbath” (Leviticus 23.11, 16), that is, on first days of the week.  The day of the meal offering is, itself, a Sabbath, though it is not called that.  Israel is to hold a holy convocation on that day and is not to do “any ordinary work” (verse 21).  So, on this feast of the firstfruits, we are reminded of Jesus, the firstfruits of the dead (1 Corinthians 15.20, 23).  Like the Lord’s Day, Pentecost celebrates resurrection.

3.  In the Feast of Tabernacles, as well, there are first- and eighth-day Sabbaths (Leviticus 23.35, 39).

4.  Now, since Pentecost and Tabernacles each includes two first-day Sabbaths, it is likely that the two Sabbaths in the Passover feast are also on the first day (verses 6-8).  So, all three of the annual feasts which look forward to the redemption of Christ feature first-day Sabbaths.

5.  The Jubilee is, most likely, a year following a Sabbath year, culminating the system of years with a first-year symbol: a Sabbath after a Sabbath.

The Old Testament symbolism, therefore, tells us that, when God fulfills His redemptive purpose, the first day will have some special significance.  It will mark a new beginning, a new creation, new life from the dead.  When redemption is accomplished, there will be an emphasis on looking back, not only on looking forward.

Even as symbolism, the difference is a matter of degree.  In the Old Testament, there was a looking back (to creation and deliverance from Egypt) as well as a looking forward (to Christ).  And, in looking forward, the Israelites anticipated something new taking place, to which they would, afterward, look back.  So, there were both seventh-day and first-day Sabbaths.  In the New Testament, there is only a first-day Sabbath, indicating the overwhelming significance of the finished work of Christ.  But, there is still the pattern of six days of work and one day of rest.  It is, still, literally true, as the Fourth Commandment says, that we work for six days and look forward to the Sabbath as a rest from that toil.  There is, still, a looking forward as well as a looking back: a looking back to the resurrection and a looking forward to Jesus’ return and the consummation of all things.  But, the symbolism in the Old Testament is weighted somewhat toward looking ahead and, in the New Testament, toward looking back.  The change between seventh-day and first-day Sabbaths is, essentially, a change in symbolic weight.

From: The Doctrine of the Christian Life by John M. Frame; A Theology of Lordship series (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008), pp. 567-568.

John M. Frame (born in 1939), is Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.

 

The Bible and Abortion

The Bible does not mention abortion specifically, but it does speak implicitly about the value of unborn children.  When I worked on a denominational committee dealing with the issue, some argued that the church should not take a stand on abortion because the Bible does not explicitly condemn it.  They said that the principle of sola Scriptura forbade the church to speak on any subject not mentioned in the Bible.  But, as we saw in Chapter 11, this is to misunderstand the sufficiency of Scripture.  That principle does not restrict the church’s proclamation to explicit statements of Scripture.  Rather, it says that Scripture, alone, provides us with divine words.  But, the very nature of application is to take the words of Scripture and show their relevance to situations outside Scripture.  If we are forbidden to make such applications, then we cannot use Scripture at all – only read it.  “You shall not steal,” therefore, implies that you shall not take the wallets of seminary professors without their consent.  And “you shall not murder” implies that you shall not kill unborn children; that is, you shall not abort a pregnancy.

From: The Doctrine of the Christian Life by John M. Frame; a volume in the A Theology of Lordship series (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008), pp. 717-718.

John M. Frame (born in 1939) is Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.

 

Covenantal Worship

Some of the saddest words in the Bible are those that portray the condition of the church in the days of the judges: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25).  These words describe a devastating spiritual anarchy.  Our days are marked by the same anarchy, not only in the culture, but also in the church.  Congregations and individuals are doing their own thing.  One congregation excommunicates a man for immorality.  He, then, goes down the street and joins another congregation, which not only receives him but, also, makes him an officer.

This spiritual anarchy is particularly evident in the area of worship.  Not that long ago, when visiting a Presbyterian or Reformed church, one would have found a basic uniformity in worship.  It mattered not whether one was in the United States, Mexico, or Korea.  Today, everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes.  A multitude of diverse forms of worship confronts us under the guise of making worship understandable and contemporary.  It seems that, along the way, people, first, began to experiment and, then, began looking around for some theological justification for what they were doing.  In the process, some have redefined the principles that govern them.

The earlier uniformity in worship grew out of a common commitment to the biblical foundation for worship.  Today, many are altering, or even denying, this foundation.  Two of the primary proponents of new principles for regulating of worship are John Frame, who redefines the Regulative Principle, and Steve Schlissel, who denies it.  Although beginning with different presupposition, both men argue in a similar fashion and reach similar conclusions.  They claim that Scripture does not regulate worship in the manner stated in the Reformed Confessions.  According to them, God requires certain basic things to be done in worship (e.g., preaching, singing, and prayer) but leaves it to the elders, who oversee worship, to determine the specific application.

This chapter’s purpose is to demonstrate the biblical basis for the Regulative Principle of Worship…

From: “Covenantal Worship,” by Joseph A. Pipa, Jr., in Written for Our Instruction: The Sufficiency of Scripture for All of Life, Joseph A. Pipa, Jr. and J. Andrew Wortman, editors (Taylors: Southern Presbyterian Press, 2001), pp. 65-66.

Dr. Joseph A. Pipa, Jr. received his Ph.D from Westminster Theological Seminary, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1985.  He is a professor at, and is president of, Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Taylors, South Carolina.  He is also the author of The Root and Branch, a study of the person and work of Christ, and of The Lord’s Day, a study of the orthodoxy and orthopraxy regarding the Lord’s Day.

 

The Doctrine of Scripture

A word must be said about the willingness of the Confession to include within the “whole counsel of God” truths that “by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.”  Some Christians have urged that logical deduction adds to Scripture and, therefore, must be resisted.  This is wrong.  Validly deduced truths add nothing to the overall truths of Scripture.  John Frame has, rightly, declared:

Implication does not add anything new [in syllogistic argument]; it merely rearranges information contained in the premises.  It takes what is implicit in the premises and states it explicitly.  Thus, when we learn logical implications of sentences, we are learning more and more of what those sentences mean.  The conclusion represents part of the meaning of the premises.

So, in theology, logical deductions set forth the meaning of Scripture…

When it is used rightly, logical deduction adds nothing to Scripture.  It merely sets forth what is there.  Thus, we need not fear any violation of sola scriptura, as long as we use logic responsibly.  Logic sets forth the meaning of Scripture.

A case in point is the doctrine of the Trinity.  In no single passage of Scripture is the full doctrine of the Trinity set forth.  But the church has deduced “by good and necessary consequence,” as the implicate of all the Scripture data, the doctrine of the Trinity – to be believed as surely as the explicit declaration of Scripture that God is loving!

One final comment.  While the framers of the Confession were absolutely convinced of the Scripture’s sufficiency, and stated as much, they affirm once again, here, that “the inward illumination of the Spirit of God [is] necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the word.”  In so doing, they indicated their zeal to keep the source of spiritual life where it must always be kept – directly in God alone.  It is the Spirit of God, working immediately and directly by and with the Word of God in the hearts of men, who imparts spiritual life!

From: A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith by Robert L. Reymond (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), pp. 86-87.

The Frame quotation is from: The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God by John Frame; A Theology of Lordship series (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1987), p. 247.

 

Fellowship Defined

The second means of grace is fellowship with God and other believers.  We usually think of fellowship as parties and dinners but, in the New Testament, it is much more.  The Greek word for fellowship is koinonia, which comes from the adjective koinos, “common.”  Fellowship is having in common; it is sharing something with someone else.  In the New Testament, it sometimes means sharing goods.  In 2 Corinthians 8:4 and Philippians 1:5, it refers to giving gifts to help needy fellow Christians.  In that sense, the early church had a truly radical fellowship.  In Acts 4:32, we read, “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of those things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.”  They shared their hearts, they shared their souls, and they shared their property, as we saw in chapter 42.  Some of the Christians sold property and gave the proceeds to the apostles for the needs of fellow Christians.  That is a kind of fellowship we rarely see in the church today, but it is simply an expression of the love that Jesus taught us.  He told us to love one another as He loved us.  That means being ready to lay down your life for another Christian.

Koinonia in the New Testament also refers to a religious sharing, a religious commonness (1 Corinthians 1:9; 10:20; 2 Corinthians 6:14; Galatians 2:9; 1 John 1:3).  To have fellowship is to worship together – together with God, with Jesus, with other believers in the Lord.  Finally, fellowship is a heartfelt sense of brotherhood, of closeness, of belonging to one family in the Lord (Philippians 2:1).

So, fellowship refers to all the kinds of one-anothering mentioned earlier in this chapter: loving one another, encouraging one another, and so on.

From: The Doctrine of the Christian Life by John M. Frame; A Theology of Lordship (series) (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008), pp. 920-921.

John M. Frame (born in 1939) is Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.  The Doctrine of the Christian Life, weighing in at 1,069 pages, is the third installment in Frame’s “Theology of Lordship” series, and is his major contribution to the discussion of Christian ethics.  The heart of the book is Frame’s 467-page exposition of the Ten Commandments.